Deus ex Machina
by Lecter code
Summary: She is a broken worlds last hope. He is a rich kid with issues. She is a freak. He is a human. She is a martyred murderer. He is a hated hero. She is a god. He is batman.
1. Chapter 1

**Please note that this story will be a crossover between Batman, (Nolan-verse) and Michael Grant's ****Gone**** series.**

**The story is compatible with the **_**first five novels in the series**_ **and some time **_**after the Joker.**_

I am not good enough to write for the Joker.

**If you have not read the ****Gone**** series, this story may be confusing to you, but I will try to explain things as I go.**

I know that this idea is weird and confusing and probably downright WRONG, but I hope it works and is enjoyable to some people.

I know _I'm_ writing it only for fun.

This could either be pretty cool or a complete fail. I suppose that's the bargain one must take in life, though.

I do not own the amazingness that is Batman and the awesomeness that is Gone.

* * *

It had been two years since the Joker had taken Gotham by storm.

Two long, _long_ years.

The psychopath had killed many in brutal ways, driven Harvey Dent's face mercilessly into the fires of hell, (literally), and single handedly turned every living soul in Gotham against Batman.

The spotlight that once proudly displayed a huge steel bat now lay dormant, collecting dust.

Not long after the Joker's suspicious death in Arkham Asylum, a horrifying and mind-numbing phenomenon hit the world head on.

No one understood the massive grey barrier that hid over ten miles of land, and even more disturbing, children, from the prying eyes of the world.

Scientists couldn't give anyone a lick of good news, and after the disgusting emergence of a couple of children, everyone naturally assumed that all inside the Anomaly was dead.

Nonetheless, they hoped and prayed that the "fishbowl" would disappear, bringing their beloved children home.

That was until the barrier suddenly became opaque and all inside was revealed.

Every disturbing detail.

Kids with insane, impossible powers.

Kids who killed without a second thought.

A malevolent alien, trying to take everything for itself.

Now every human on the outside world hoped and prayed that the barrier would _never_ come down.

As Gotham was the biggest and closest major city to the Anomaly, it quickly became a massive security force, ready for every scenario possible.

Should anything change, Gotham would be the first to know.

It was 2010.

Life was as quiet as it had ever been.

Peace never lasts.

* * *

_Gordon's POV_

Bile rose in my throat when I heard the shout.

"The Anomaly is down, I repeat, _the Anomaly is down!"_

Red lights were flashing, alarms buzzing.

"When did it disappear?" I joined the gradually growing crowd that had gathered around the single huge monitor proudly displaying an image of the barrier.

"It isn't _gone,_ it's…_down…_I don't know how to accurately describe it…" George, the scientist on duty, was grasping at straws as he tried to find a way to tell us little folk what was happening.

"It's like there are parts of it that are weak. Much weaker than the rest of it. There's one place in particular. Its force is so weak that I'm almost sure someone could walk through it."

There was a dead silence in a room filled with screaming sirens.

"Has there been any movement anywhere around the barrier?" I asked.

_Please say no, please say no._

"…Maybe…"

"What does that mean, 'maybe'?"

"There was movement about fifteen seconds ago, but it was so tiny that it could have been an animal."

"An animal from in there is going to be a threat." I said, shuddering as I remembered the frighteningly massive coyotes that had one day walked up to the see-through barrier. "Dispatch a squad of men to start searching for anything abnormal around the barrier! George, if anyone calls about _anything_, tell me immediately. You know my number."

I took off for the roof of the police station, hoping that the spotlight would shine as bright as it had once.

* * *

_Batman's POV_

The bat-light was flashing incessantly, as if someone was clicking the power button on and off.

…_the hell…?_

It had been years since I'd seen my symbol high in the dark clouds of Gotham, and I almost dropped the drug dealer I'd been…interrogating.

"**You're a lucky man".** Dropping the sobbing kid, I leapt off of the fire escape and sprinted to the Bat-pod.

While it was nice to see my symbol on display again, I knew that its presence meant something was very wrong. Gordon would not use it unless he absolutely had to.

I sped off into the night.

* * *

Gordon was frazzled to say the least. He was hunched over the power switch to the spotlight when I arrived, hand practically cramping as he turned it off and back on again with a speed that impressed even me.

I had to shake him to get him to speak coherently after he saw me and started pacing, mumbling like a lunatic.

"_**Gordon! **_**What's. Going. On?"**

"Something went wrong. With the Anomaly. It got…I don't know, weak or something in certain places and in _one_ place it got so weak that apparently someone could pass through it and George saw_ movement!"_

My heart leapt to my throat. Just what I didn't need.

"**Gordon. I want you to calm down. Stay in the police station and **_**I**_** will go there to search and communicate back to **_**you.**_**"**

"But how will you-?"

I disappeared into the shadows and smirked as I caught Gordon's last sentence.

"Hasn't changed a bit".

* * *

Apparently the outside appearance of the barrier had not changed, because when I arrived I was pleased to see no reporters and very little tourists.

"Batman, are you there yet?"

It seemed that Gordon remembered how to work the little black cell phone I had given him a year and a half ago, when the barrier first appeared.

"**Yes."**

"Seen anything yet?"

"**No."**

"Okay, so the weakest point, the point where there was movement, is at-"

"**It's where clifftop hotel was cut off, I know."**

"Right…my men are on call in case anything goes wrong. Gordon out."

Switching on the night vision screen built into my mask, I started to scan the area.

The forest floor leading up to the abandoned hotel was empty, not even a squirrel willing to live near the barrier. I pushed ferns out of my way as dead leaves crunched underneath my feet.

A thud just ahead of me.

I looked up at the entrance to the hotel, but saw no movement. I continued forward, more cautious than ever as fear started to make itself known in my gut.

There was a tiny whistling sound and all of a sudden my eyes went dark. Cursing, I clawed the tiny broken screen out of my mask.

Oh yes. There was something strange out here.

A crunch to my left.

"Batman?"

I whipped around.

"**Stand by".**

"What is it? What's going-"

"**Shut up!"**

I inched forward, hand on my Taser.

"**Who's there?"**

A crunch to my right.

"**I'm not going to hurt you…"**

I turned my Taser up.

"**Where are you!"**

A sudden whooshing sound and then something collided with my chest.

Fear escaped in a shout that sounded more like a roar and I threw the thing from me with as much force as I could muster.

"Batman! What is going _on?"_

A high-pitched cry of pain.

_Oh __**no**__…_

I switched on the flashlight hidden in the wrists of my armor and frantically brushed away thorny bushes and green plants turned black in the darkness.

An abnormal shape suddenly appeared, stumbling towards me. I flashed the light towards it.

And stopped breathing.

"Batman! BATMAN!"

The figure stood before me, dazed from the light and the fact that I had hurled it into the barrier.

I dove forward as it collapsed.

"ANSWER me, Batman!"

"**Gordon."**

"Yes! Finally! Are you all right? What did you find?"

I looked down at the unconscious white haired girl in my arms, the wings on her back brushing the dirty forest floor.

"**Nothing. There's nothing here."**

* * *

**Author's note:** I know Gordon destroyed the bat-light or whatever it's called in The Dark Knight, but lets just say that didn't happen. I also _don't_ know which state Gotham is in, but for the purposes of this story, it will be in California.

I love getting constructive criticism; it only helps me improve my writing to create a better reading experience for you.


	2. Chapter 2

Quiet filled every corner of the room after Gordon signed off. Lying to him has never been easy, but something in my gut told me that he was better off in the dark on this one.

Instead of keeping me grounded, the weight in my arms had me reeling for control of a situation far beyond my realm of expertise. I could not even look down at the…thing.

I practically kicked myself when I realized that I was fantasizing about the Joker walking in to the stuffy hotel room and cackling about this fantastic prank he had played on me.

Anything sounded better than the position I was in now.

Static from the transmitter in my ear.

"Master Bruce?"

The suddenness of Alfred's familiar and much needed voice shocked me into action.

"Alfred. I need you to drive down to Hilltop Hotel in the biggest car I own."

"That would be the Tumbler, sir".

And there was that British wit I loved so much…"Then bring the Royce. I also need you to bring a couple sets of radioactive cuffs. All sizes".

There was a long silence on the other side as I laid the creature hidden in shadow down on the floor, awkwardly trying to bend the massive wings. Alfred hesitantly replied as I reached into the dusty part of my belt for a set of cuffs. Hoping that they still worked I slid the on switch into position and it whirred to life, little lights glowing green in the darkness.

"Sir, are you referring to the cuffs you offered to the Gotham police should any thing at all escape the Anomaly?"

"I am".

A longer silence this time. I tightened the cuffs around the wrists of the starved creature until I felt bones creak. The lights remained green, blinking in five-second increments.

Assessing the damage. I could avoid it no longer. If this thing died because I hurled it into the barrier I would never forgive myself, freak though it was.

Pulse.

Weak, but there.

Breathing.

Reasonably steady.

Response.

Bright blue eyes staring at me when I opened closed lids.

I rocked back on my heels. _Don't look now, it's okay to wait. The…person is breathing at least, and it's too dark to check for injuries._

"Master Bruce, are the cuffs needed as a result of the weakened barrier that I noted on the monitors not an hour ago?"

I sighed in annoyance and slight desperation. "Yes Alfred, a person did come out of the barrier intact which is why I need you to get here as quickly as possible in the Royce. No one else knows of its being here and I cannot risk a chase in the Tumbler."

"I am leaving now, sir".

The transmitter became quiet and the stillness of the room settled over me again. The dark had never been less welcome.

Wayne Manor, finished four months ago, was within twenty miles of Hilltop. This information combined with my knowledge of Alfred's driving put his arrival at approximately thirty minutes from now. More than enough time for me to run some tests on the barrier. I checked to make sure the cuffs were functioning one more time and then got to work.

I needed to test the strength of the barrier and make sure that it was not weak anymore. One creature-or child-coming out from the inside was bad enough but I knew that another was something I couldn't deal with. The device I'd designed eight months ago was meant to measure the strength in radioactivity of the barrier. It could read the entire bubble and if its levels were the same throughout, as it should be, the number would show on the device. If not, the device would send an image to a monitor in the cave pinpointing the weak spots.

Control and consistent thought quickly came back to me when the gadget was in my hands. This was something that I could deal with, something that I could bend to my will. Little numbers read nothing in my hands and I attached it to the barrier, careful not to touch it. The pain could still be felt through thick leather gloves, much to my annoyance. The numbers began climbing as soon as I started the process.

But I couldn't forget the little body lying on the ground behind me and soon the numbers flashed by and began to blur as the memory of that strange and terrifying day bubbled up.

_It was a beautiful day. Cloudless skies, swooping birds and a burning California sun._

_I dropped a bottle, now empty, at my feet._

_The sun should not have been shining. Birds should not have been singing. Because Rachel, my one love, the reason for my existence, was gone._

_Ten months since I last saw her face. Ten months since I holed myself up in my penthouse, accepting nothing but booze and food. In that order._

_The door opened, Alfred's footsteps echoing over the floor that he tried so hard to maintain even in my desperation to ruin it with glass and liquor._

_But there was something different…something in the air that made me turn to look at him in well-hidden curiosity. I could feel what was left of my heart plummet when I saw the look on his face. The horror._

_I was spared asking when he walked briskly to the television and turned on the news._

_What followed was a myriad of emotions so spectacular and sudden that my alcohol-laden brain fuzzed out._

_I woke up in a clean white bed smelling of antiseptics and hand sanitizer. Alfred and-to my great surprise-Fox were standing at the foot of my bed, watching me. Almost as soon as my heavy eyelids were open, Alfred began to speak. He told me about what I saw, how not a single living soul knew what caused it. How mass suicides were taking place in fundamentalist religions, as those involved were convinced their god was punishing them in some way. How Fox's niece was one of the many children stuck in the barrier._

_Alfred's voice began to blur as my eyes focused on the television screen behind him. A little boy was blowing bubbles, smiling at the delicate soap creations._

_The bubbles popped._

_He blew another one._

The barrier brought change of a good kind, bringing Americans together with previous enemies as all tried to understand what exactly was happening. Gotham cleaned up in record time as something far more sinister than robberies had happened right on the city's doorstep. I could not stop hiding in the walls of my mind any longer; Batman was still needed.

My mourning period was over.

It was time to move on.

I threw myself into research and for weeks could not find a plausible answer to the question "what". I didn't even bother with the "why". Desperate to make some kind of headway, my eyes turned to the Nuclear power plant in the middle of the barrier. If I could not understand what this thing was, why not take every possible precaution? I was soon creating gadgets whose purpose was not yet known, just to feel as if I was _doing _something.

_Beep!_

A tiny sound sent me back to the present as the number 98.4-normal-displayed on my little gadget.

The strength of the barrier was back to its original state.

I removed the gadget from the wall and turned my attention back towards the creature on the floor. Still no movement. She was completely unconscious, handcuffs still flashing in five second increments.

"Sir, I have arrived."

Alfred's voice flooded my ears and relief flooded my body as I replied and scooped up the body.

"I'm coming".

A/N: I've decided to stop bolding whatever Batman says; I don't even know why I did it in the first place.

PLEASE READ: I recently saw The Dark Knight Rises and really enjoyed the character of Bane, but did not think Nolan paid the character the respect deserved when he added Talia Al Ghul. It felt a bit like a cop-out on Nolan's part.

THIS BEING SAID, I'm seriously considering adding Bane to this story, but I don't want to add anything unnecessary. Opinions, anyone?


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